Inmate untreated for 2 days after fracas with guards

Published 6:00 pm, Wednesday, January 23, 2008

A state inmate lay for two days in his own filth on his prison cell floor last year after a fracas with prison guards, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Larry Louis Cox, 48, died Feb. 6, two weeks after the scuffle. The Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a homicide caused by blunt force trauma complicated by medical neglect.

Medical staff at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville reported that Cox "refused" medication because he could not stand and come to the cell door, the newspaper reported in its Thursday editions. According to records obtained by the Chronicle, Cox actually told the medical staff that he could not move. Only after he was hospitalized was he diagnosed with two broken vertebrae.

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where Cox died, is responsible for medical care of Texas state prison inmates. Dr. Ben Raimer, head of UTMB's prison health-care system, called Cox's case "unfortunate," not criminal.

The death has prompted state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, to hold a hearing Thursday to examine health care, guard shortages and other problems in the prison system. He has called for a federal and state investigation of Cox's death.

The Chronicle reported that Walker County prosecutors acknowledge that they twice declined to prosecute the medical staff, despite recommendations from the state's Office of Inspector General.

Cox had been an inmate of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice since 1990, when he was convicted in Harris County of burglary with intent to commit sexual assault. While imprisoned, the Houston man was convicted of murdering another inmate.